


Returning the Favor

by rendezvous



Category: Gyakuten Saiban | Ace Attorney
Genre: Arguing, Gen, Light Angst, One Shot, Wordcount: 100-1.000, Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-18
Updated: 2013-06-18
Packaged: 2017-12-15 10:26:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/848439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rendezvous/pseuds/rendezvous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set somewhere around the events of AA5 (no spoilers, don't worry, just self-indulgence)</p>
<p>Edgeworth becomes aware of everything the once-great Phoenix Wright has done over the last year. Naturally, Edgeworth is ashamed on Phoenix's part - and angry. He drags Phoenix to his office and chews him out.</p>
<p>Phoenix is not pleased.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Returning the Favor

“Your office is even more impressive than it used to be… I’m surprised, I didn’t really think it could get any flashier.”

“Don’t change the subject,” Edgeworth said sternly as he removed his coat. “And shut the door behind you.”

“It sounds like I’m in trouble,” Phoenix joked, but he complied, gently closing the door and giving the both of them their privacy. His lighthearted approach to this encounter was masking his irritation at being interrupted, he still had investigative work to do. Surely Edgeworth would have understood. “What is it you need?”

Edgeworth pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose, staring directly at the spot of wall behind and to the right of the other man as opposed to looking straight at him. “An explanation.”

“… An explanation for what?”

“Damn it, Wright, you can’t bluff your way out of this one,” Edgeworth snapped just as Phoenix had finished his reply. “Don’t think I’m completely in the dark. I’ve gathered information all about your endeavors from last year. I’ve talked to your apprentice and your daughter, Mr. Gavin, Detective Gumshoe, even that man at the noodle stand. I know what you’ve been up to, and it sickens me how unaware you are of the detrimentality of your actions.”

Phoenix held up his hands in a loose gesture of defense. “Whoah, hold on - what are you even talking about? And what makes you think it’s okay to disappear and then all of a sudden just show up again and start prying into my personal life like it’s nothing?”

“It’s hardly _your_ personal life anymore,” Edgeworth pointed out, and the defense attorney noticed a slight hiss had slipped into his tone. “I know what happened with your daughter.”

“ _… What_ happened with my daughter, exactly?” Phoenix asked quietly, his voice dropping to a dangerously low volume. “What are you accusing me of?”

The prosecutor snapped his gaze to the other man in a momentary display of fury. “You used her to win hands of poker. Card games. Card games that you knew people had been _killed_ over. You wasted both her and your time, time that you could have put towards redeeming yourself and time she could have spent being a teenager.”

Apalled, Phoenix slammed his hands on either side of the surface of Edgeworth’s desk. “Are you saying I willingly put my daughter in danger!?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Edgeworth said sharply, and rose from his seat, beginning to pace in front of his bookshelves. “Ergo, you took the faith that Justice had put in you after losing his mentor and used it to your advantage, making him your pawn in your game of clawing your way back to the top. And need I remind you of the forged evidence you forced him to use?”

“This has nothing to do with you,” Phoenix said slowly, his knuckles fading to white as he gripped the desk with growing intensity. “Why are you bringing this up?”

“I’m relieved to hear that you’re not denying it,” Edgeworth replied, somewhat more calmly this time. “And it involves me indirectly. It pains me to see you so blatantly losing sight of what you once sought to enforce with everything you had, Wright. Quite frankly, I’m ashamed.”

Phoenix narrowed his eyes. “What do you expect to happen now that you’ve stirred all this up?”

“I didn’t stir up a damn thing. Your ‘fall from grace’ has been quite the storm for some time - I’m just acknowledging the elephant in the room.”

Straightening from his hunched position at the grand wooden desk, Phoenix let out a heavy, yet quiet sigh and began heading for the door. “You’ve changed, Edgeworth.”

“Indeed, I have. For the better. _You,_ however, have taken a vehement turn for the worse,” Edgeworth retorted coldly. He turned around, his shifting from the case files on his bookshelves back to his old friend, and he only got a glimpse of him before the door shut with a click and the defense attorney had made his bitter exit.

The prosecutor removed his glasses and slipped them into his chest pocket, inhaling deeply. “You got through to me all those years ago, Wright… think of this as me returning the favor.”

**Author's Note:**

> aaahhh i was a bit sleepy when i wrote this, so i didnt proofread much, but i still liked it enough to post it here. this is a scenario that im very much hoping for in aa5, what with edgeworth having to pull phoenix up out of the dark; a sort of parallel to what phoenix had to do for edgeworth all those years ago.
> 
> more self-indulgent writing b bbb bb ppt t ttptptttt t t t t t thhhhhhh


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